Mathworks helps to explain How The Weatherworks and vice versa

It's well-known that math is the language of science. It certainly is when it come to meteorology. Imagine a TV weathercast without an array of numbers that can range from today's high and low to the number of tornadoes this year versus the past decade. While much emphasis has been placed on each of you wearing a station scientist hat, how many of you have pondered wearing a patterned mathematician's tie or scarf? How many of you have considered wearing both together?

In this presentation, we'd like to offer some ways in which you can capitalize on your mathematical skills to help kids and adults alike better understand mathematics. We don't make this statement lightly. In today's test-focused schoolhouses, kids are taught HOW to solve math problems, not WHY the math works. The same could be said for science inquiry and reading comprehension. No wonder the U.S. is so far down the international scoring totem pole according to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

PISA is an international study (begun in 2000) which is attempting to evaluate education systems worldwide via testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in some 70 participating countries/economies. On the latest (2009) rankings, the U.S. is below average globally in math and only average in science and reading. This places the U.S. close to the United Kingdom and Portugal and far removed from much of developed Asia, Australia, Finland and Canada.

Over five years ago, we started a math tutoring program (called Mathworks) in Naples. We used our knowledge of meteorology (How The Weatherworks) and education to help students see the connectivities between math and science. It has worked incredibly well. In the process, we have discovered many innovative ways to bring math to the science table and use science to help kids understand math.

We'd like to share some of these with you so you can bring the same level of excitement back to your media market that we are doing in southwest Florida. Today, you'll see how much math really is involved in hurricanes and how measuring rainfall can make geometry much more interesting.